Looking Backward

What The Wave Said

20

Years Ago...

Congressman Joseph P. Addabbo, dean of New York City’s Congressional delegation, gives the impression these days of a man who is running hard for his political life. On a single night last week, for instance, Addabbo attended a political rally in Ozone Park, shot south to Rockaway Beach to participate in an award ceremony of the Committee to Promote Irish Culture and dashed back north and east to end the evening in Rosedale at the opening of a Sons of Italy festival. “It’s a merry-go-round,” Addabbo admitted recently in an exclusive interview with The Wave. “But we’re running hard, not scared.”

Intoxicated drivers are falling into the hands of 100 Precinct police regularly since the precinct set up a checkpoint on the Cross Bay Veterans Memorial Bridge. They nabbed six drivers last Friday and Saturday nights alone.

Babies will parade this Saturday morning in Broad Channel as part of the island’s fire department’s Mardi Gras celebration.

New York City’s Department of Parks and Recreation will provide a skatemobile for an open African Street Festival on Arverne Boulevard, between Beach 59 Street and Beach Channel Drive, this week. The skates will be provided without charge for anyone who wears socks and wants to participate.

The Wave has reached a new record number of pages for a regular issue: 60. The last time the paper reached this size it contained a special 12-page insert.

30

Years Ago...

National Park Service mounted police will soon be a common site at Jacob Riis Park. It will be the first time Mounties have been assigned to duty here in a couple of decades.

Announcement of the beach renourishment program, which is to start soon, was accompanied by the statement that a dredge, to pump sand to the beach, from offshore sandbars, could work through bad weather. It wouldn’t last long in the high seas that have accompanied bad weather within the memory of most local residents.

With Mayor Beame’s approval of the route through Forest Park for the proposed subway line to serve Kennedy Airport, Rockaway hopes for the revival of the Long Island Rail Road’s Rockaway division have been dashed, at least for the time being.

Fort Tilden and Floyd Bennett Field are expected to be turned over to the federal government before the end of the year for incorporation into the Gateway National Park.

40

Years Ago...

Mario Russo stopped at our new offices the other day to register a complaint – his picture hasn’t been on The Wave’s front page for two or three weeks.

The old Magnolia mansion on Beach 84 Street, which has been used as the rectory of St. Rose of Lima Church for the past few years and was recently opened to make room for the new church school, is destined to leave the local scene. It will be demolished when the new rectory, nearing completion, is ready.

Acquisition of 400 additional acres of land to be added to Breezy Point Park has been approved by Mayor Wagner. No word yet on the fate of the steel frames for those big apartment houses.

The steeple on St. John Baptist Church seems to have a slight list towards the ocean, but workmen say it can be corrected.

50

Years Ago...

Magistrate J. Irwin Shapiro of Far Rockaway was sworn in Friday as a Justice of the Domestic Relations Court by Mayor Robert F. Wagner at City Hall ceremonies.

Thomas J. Shanahan of 1438 Beach 142 Street has been named vice-chairman of the New York City Housing Authority, it was announced today by Philip J. Cruise, chairman of the authority.

Dean Georges, backstop on Far Rockaway High School’s baseball team, is going to become a florist.

The youngsters shown in the photograph above (not shown) will one day tell their children how they stood on the shore and watched the railroad trestle progress toward Rockaway Beach. Rockaway residents want to know why the Board of Transportation can’t make a deal with the Long Island Rail Road to provide interim service as soon as the trestle is completed. Two more years is a long wait, especially since the trestle will be finished next year.

Hurricane Carol, bound for eastern Long Island, just gave the Rockaways a dirty look as it continued on its course. But it managed to scare a number of residents, drive others from their homes, knock down electric wires and play havoc with boats along the Jamaica Bayfront.